Graduate students
Natasha Porco
I am a first year MSc student at Ryerson and I joined the McPhee and Botelho labs in 2020 as a thesis student. My project looks at uropathogenic E. coli (UPEC) filamentation through the activation of the PhoPQ system. During urinary tract infections, this system is activated in UPEC in response to stressful environmental conditions in order to promote survival. The goal of my project is to further understand and characterize filamentation mediated through this regulatory system.
Reshmi Misir
Reshmi’s project looks at the role of regulatory gene loss in the behaviour of Shigella spp. Shigella are enteropathogens that kill more than 500K people annually. The goal of my project is to understand how gene loss contributes to enhanced Shigella virulence.
Undergraduate students
Tesam Ahmed
Jateya Grbic
Jateya is a fourth year Undergraduate Thesis Student in the Biomedical Sciences program at Toronto Metropolitan University. Continuing on the work of Reshmi Misir, Jateya is studying how alterations made to the outer membrane lipopolysaccharide (LPS) affect the PmrAB Regulatory System in pathogenic Escherichia coli (E. coli). The goal of this project is to further understand bacterial environmental sensing within E. coli.
Golsa Makvandi
Golsa is currently a fourth-year thesis student in the Biomedical Sciences program at Toronto Metropolitan University. Her project is in collaboration with Dr. Dustin Little and focuses on examining the role of EnvY in regulating the PhoPQ activity.
McPhee Lab Alumni
Youn Hee Cho – PhD student – 2016-2022
Arooj Qamar – MSc student – 2020-2022
Madison Tomlinson – MSc student – 2019-2021
Raymond Huynh – MSc student – 2019-2021
Mayet Awoke – undergraduate thesis student – 2021-22
Adelaida Blaxley – undergraduate thesis student – 2021-22
Selina Melilo – undergraduate thesis student – 2021-22
Shafi Rahman – undergraduate thesis student – 2021-22
Julia Novielli – undergraduate thesis student – 2021-22
Ingrid Bancolita – undergraduate thesis student – 2020-21
Ipar Karaali – undergraduate thesis student – 2020-21
Urooj Khan – undergraduate thesis student – 2020-21
Jocelyne Mendez-Guzman – undergraduate thesis student – 2020-21
Taylor Pham – NSERC USRA – 2021
Adam Khan – MSc student – 2017-2019
Zohra Kassam – undergraduate thesis student 2019-2020
Nathaniel Katzenberg – undergraduate thesis student 2019-2020
Avery Malpass – NSERC USRA undergraduate thesis student 2019-2020
Reshmi Misir – undergraduate thesis student 2019-2020
Deserie Montances – undergraduate thesis student 2019-2020
Eesa Chaudhry – visiting international student – 2018-2019
Abuzar Zainul Abedin – NSERC USRA 2017 and 2018; undergraduate thesis student 2018-2019
Disha Acharya – undergraduate thesis student 2018-2019
Jasika Bashal – undergraduate thesis student 2018-2019
Joy Dallaire – undergraduate thesis student 2018-2019
Anna Mapili – undergraduate thesis student 2018-2019
Michael Renouf – MSc student – 2016-2018
Sheena Shah – visiting international student – 2017-2018
Rebecca Cabral-Dias – undergraduate thesis student 2017-2018 (co-supervised with Dr. Costin Antonescu)
Najih Ismail – undergraduate thesis student 2017-2018
Ashuka Kayastha – undergraduate thesis student 2017-2018
Shion Song – undergraduate thesis student 2017-2018
Riasad Fadle Aziz – undergraduate thesis student 2017-2018
Tanuja Sutradhar – undergraduate thesis student 2017-2018
Viktoria Weisz – undergraduate volunteer 2016-2017
Mario Vargas MSc – graduate student 2015-2018
Jessica Kociper – undergraduate volunteer 2016-2017
Lauren Phillips – undergraduate thesis student 2016-2017
Veronica Cojocari – undergraduate thesis student 2015-16
Mariya-Nikol Leshchyshyn – undergraduate volunteer 2015-2016
Achjuthan Raveendran – undergraduate summer student 2016